Hopeful
by CMLeoLover
Summary: As he felt her heart stop, Hotch dropped onto his knees and cried. He had just lost his everything. Major character death.


So here is a short one for you because I just could not get this idea out of my head, I'm still trying to overcome my diagnoses with writers block. It was a devastating discovery. I will try to update "_Heart without a Beat"_ soon!

I sadly do not own_ Criminal Minds._

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**"No one is so brave that he is undisturbed by something unexpected." **

**- Julius Caesar.**

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_"Be safe my super heroes! Garcia out!" _

Garcia's voice came through the phone which made the whole team laugh.

_"Remind me to have her drug tested,"_ Hotch whispered to JJ jokingly which made her playfully swat him on the arm.

_"Ok JJ and Morgan you take the back entrance, Emily and Dave you take the side and Reid, you and I will take the front."_ Hotch waited for his team to nod before they split off in search of Robert Lawless. A killer who kidnapped and tortured young blonde women before brutally murdering them by stabbing them in the heart.

Hotch and Reid slowly entered with the SWAT team as back up. He heard shouts of _"clear"_ coming through his ear piece. There was no sign of him. He was beginning to doubt the address. Nothing could have prepared Hotch for what was to happen next. Nothing. He was clearing the second floor of the address they were sent to when he heard shouts and two gunshots. His heart was in his mouth as he heard Morgan's voice come through his earpiece,

_"We need a medic! Agent down!" _

He knew it was her the minute Derek said it. They were paired together to do the back entrance. Hotch ran through the warehouse without a second thought. He had heard the gunshots and he just knew that it was not good. He couldn't lose her. Not JJ. His wife for nearly a year. Hotch could hear his heart beating as he ran on the concrete floor, sweat dripping from his face. _Damn protocol._

_"Where's my damn medic!"_

This made him have flashbacks to Emily's "death". He choked back tears as he rounded the corner into the large room where the unsub was keeping his victims. Blood stains covered the walls and there was various instruments laid out which made him feel sick. The man which had orchestrated the whole thing lay on the ground. He had been shot in the head.

Hotch pulled his eyes away from the bastard to look at his wife who was situated in Morgan's hands, his gun on the floor beside him. Blood was leaving her petite body at an alarming rate. He fell to his knees and went to check for a pulse. It was very faint. He tried to pull himself together and placed his hands on his wife's abdomen.

JJ groaned at the new pressure and tried to push Hotch's hands away.

_"Jayje, I'm sorry but I have to keep my hands here, you...you're losing too much blood."_

_"A..Aaron."_

Hotch nodded Sadly, _"yes honey it's me." _He held back a sob as he watched his wife's eyes flutter closed. Her breathing grew shallower.

Derek felt for her pulse and he watched as his eyes grew wide. He couldn't feel one.

_"Jayje...no come on show me those pretty blues of yours."Morgan said trying but failing to keep the mood light._

He began shaking her gently while Hotch began CPR. He began pounding on his wife's chest furiously trying to get her to breath. Tears fell from his eyes as he tried and tried again and again. He was failing.

_"No! Jay, please...please." _

His compressions on her chest slowly came to a halt. He brought his hands up to his face and cried. She was gone. One of his only life lines, the love of his life, his everything, was gone. Tears were falling from Morgan's eyes but he couldn't wipe them as he was still holding JJ in his hands. Hotch reached up and gently moved her blood stained blonde hair that he loved so much from her face. He then reached and took her away from Morgan and hugged her lifeless body. He didn't even try to hold back the sobs as they racked his body.

He wanted this to all be a dream. That he would wake up beside her and see her chest rising and falling. That meant she was alive. Anger began to take a hold of him and Hotch began crying,

_"Why? Jayje please don't do this, please what about Jack? What about Henry?! What about me?" _

He held her close against his chest. Her body shaking as he cried. He sat there for hours with his dead partner in his arms until he was coaxed away by Dave so the medics could take over. Even though there was nothing they could do to save JJ. You saw the rest of the team standing there. Reid, Morgan and Emily. No one had a dry eye. They were all thinking how this was not fair. How could this happen to them? To JJ? She was the one who made them laugh when skies were grey. She was the one who held this team together. It would never be the same.

Hotch looked up to see JJ being put in a body bag. He collapsed to the ground and sobbed. He didn't care who was there, or about all the sympathetic glances that were being thrown at him from the paramedics. He allowed himself to have a moment to grieve. His world had come crashing down that day and failed to stop it from happening. It all happened too fast and the only thing he could think of was,

_that it was all his fault._

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**"If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them." – The Crow, written by James O'Barr, David J. Schow, and John Shirley, 1994**

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So what did you think? Please read and review and let me know if you want more chapters and what to put in them!


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